Keep the name or drop it? Greenville debates Wade Hampton issue

Asha Marie, who is a Fine Arts Center and Wade Hampton High student, speaks during the Greenville News Community Forum What's in a name" Thursday at the Greenville Co. Library. Marie has started a petition to change the name of Wade Hampton High.(Photo: BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff)Buy Photo

But school board trustee Lynda Leventis-Wells, herself a graduate of Wade Hampton, said most people associate the name of the school not with a Confederate general but with a respected school known for its high academic standards and charitable endeavors.

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Rev. Deb Richardson-Moore speaks in favor of changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.(Photo: BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff)

“We looked at Wade Hampton as a school that we loved,” Leventis-Wells said to the audience of about 100. “Our academics were important to us, our camaraderie, the friendships. This is our history. We keep our history and we build on it. When I think of Wade Hampton, it’s to educate, inspire and empower. Why would we wipe it out? Learn from our history.”

Leventis-Wells argued also that a name change would not improve academic achievement.

"It's not going to change education," she said. "Our school district is focused on academic achievement, on what's best for the students. We want every student to experience success."

It started with a petition

The Wade Hampton debate first erupted in May when 16-year-old student Asha Marie wrote a petition asking the school board to drop the name of the school "named after a man who killed my ancestors."

A few thousand students signed Marie's petition. A few thousand other students, meanwhile, signed onto a counter-petition, calling for the board to keep the name.

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Lynda Leventis-Wells speaks in favor of not changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.(Photo: BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff)

Richardson-Moore said the Greenville community "should take the higher road and acknowledge the mistreatment of an entire people at the hands of our ancestors and how painful it must be for Asha and the black students I went to high school with, and those there today, to walk into a building every day that's named for someone who represented the Confederacy."

Sparks flew briefly at the forum, which took place at the Hughes Main Library and was sponsored by TheGreenville News, when a woman in the audience seemed to address African Americans: "Why can't you be like Christ? Forgive and forget."

A man in the same row responded, "If you're like Christ, you stand up against injustice."

The legacy of history

Richardson-Moore said she was initially ambivalent about the Wade Hampton issue but later recognized that the school's name was part of a racist history that was hurtful to many African Americans.

"Every Confederate battle flag, every monument to Nathan Bedford Forrest, every school and road named for a Confederate general becomes a slap in the face to some of our brothers and sisters," Richardson-Moore said.

Leventis-Wells said painful aspects of history shouldn't be allowed to affect the present.

"That was history," Leventis-Wells said. "That's the way it was years and years ago. Times have changed. We look at things differently."

Marie, who was also a panelist, responded that history still wields a powerful and sometimes negative influence.

"I don't think history is just something in the past, that it's done with," Marie said. "If history was in the past, we would not be having this conversation today. We would not be seeing the same problems from back in the 1800s. Yes, we don't have black people in the fields right now. But we do have mass incarceration. We do have police brutality. We still have systematic oppression. We have a problem in the South where we allow racism to fly under the radar. It has been normalized in our society. And that's what Wade Hampton is: The name of the school is racism normalized."

The school misguidedly honors Wade Hampton III not only through its name, Marie said, but also through the name of the school's team, the Generals. Meanwhile, the crossed swords in the school's seal represent a legacy of violence perpetrated against blacks in the South, she said.

'Racism is racism'

Marie's petition grew out of her own research into the life of Wade Hampton III.

What she found was that Hampton was a Confederate lieutenant general and, with 3,000 slaves, one of the largest slaveholders in the South.

Hampton became governor of South Carolina with the help of a violent paramilitary group, know as the Red Shirts, that have been linked to the deaths of 150 blacks who were attempting to vote. In her petition, Marie also argued that Hampton raised legal defense money for the Ku Klux Klan and promoted segregation.

"I was pretty appalled by the history we're honoring with my school's name," Marie said.

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Fine Arts Center and Wade Hampton student Asha Marie, who wrote a petition to have the name of Wade Hampton High changed, speaks during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Andy Irwin, who is a 1972 graduate of Wade Hampton High, speaks in favor of changing the school's name during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Robert Phillips speaks in favor of not changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Rev. Deb Richardson-Moore speaks in favor of changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Lynda Leventis-Wells speaks in favor of not changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Jesse Lemon, who is a 2013 graduate of Wade Hampton High, speaks in favor of changing the school's name during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Wade Hampton student Asha Marie, center, and The Rev. Dr. David Taylor listen as Lynda Leventis-Wells speaks in favor of not changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

The Rev. Dr. David Taylor speaks in favor of changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Nils Fretwurst speaks in favor of changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Efia Nwangaza speaks in favor of changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Fine Arts Center and Wade Hampton student Asha Marie, who wrote a petition to have the name of Wade Hampton High changed, speaks during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Grady Butler speaks in favor of changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Lynda Leventis-Wells speaks in favor of not changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Lawson Wetli, who's two children went to Wade Hampton High, speaks in favor of changing the school's name during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Dr. Feliccia Smith speaks in favor of changing the name of Wade Hampton High School during the Greenville News community forum "What's in a Name" at the Greenville County Library on Thursday, September 7, 2017.
BART BOATWRIGHT/Staff

Marie has suggested that the school be named after Max Heller, the late Greenville mayor and one of the chief architects of Greenville's much-admired downtown.

"Changing the name of the school offers a chance to promote diversity," Marie said, noting that the school has an enrollment that is 39 percent minority. "It offers a chance to say, 'We're not just supporting one group of people.'"

The Rev. David Taylor, a 1977 graduate of Wade Hampton and former student body president, said that while he "loved that school dearly," it was wrong to honor someone who condoned "lynching and slavery and brutality toward African Americans."

Taylor emphasized, however, the importance "to listen and understand each other and respect each other from where we are with our positions. I think that's so important."

'Bigger things'

Left unsaid at the forum was the fact that because of the state's Heritage Act, a name change would require a vote of two-thirds of the Legislature. Lawmakers have expressed no desire to get involved in the conflict.

Jennings provided time for comments from the audience.

Local activist Efia Nwangaza said there is no ambiguity when it comes to the legacy of white supremacy.

“There’s no both sides to the question of genocide," she said.

Grady Butler, a former Greenville school board member, spoke of the segregated Greenville of the past and made an impassioned plea for improving the teaching of history in the schools.

“I didn’t go to Wade Hampton. I couldn’t go to Wade Hampton," Butler said. "I couldn’t buy a Coke on Main Street. I think all of us here have gotten an education. We need to have a revision of the curriculum. One of my sisters who taught in the schools said how poorly African-American history is taught. We need to go beyond the statutes and the monuments. There are bigger things and more important things that we need to get to in this town right now.”

Paul Hyde covers education and everything else under the South Carolina sun. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter: @PaulHyde7.